Buffalo Palace

by Terry C. Johnston

  PRAISE FOR

  THE NOVELS OF

  TERRY C. JOHNSTON

  DANCE ON THE WIND

  “A good book … not only gives readers a wonderful story, but also provides vivid slices of history that surround the colorful characters.”

  —Dee Brown, author of

  Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee

  “Packed with people, action and emotion … makes you wish it would never end.”

  —Clive Cussler

  WINTER RAIN

  “Some of the finest depictions of Indian warfare I have ever read. Johnston’s romantic vision imbues the early West with an aching beauty that moderns can only dream of.”

  —Richard S. Wheeler, author of

  Two Medicine River

  CRY OF THE HAWK

  “This novel has the epic sweep of the frontier built into it.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Will stain the reader with grease, blood, and smoke.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  THE SON OF THE PLAINS TRILOGY

  “Terry Johnston is the genuine article…. His Custer trilogy is proving this significant point, just as his Indian wars and mountain man boooks prove it. I admire his power and invention as a writer, but I admire his love and faith in history just as much.”

  —Will Henry, author of

  From Where the Sun Now Stands

  CARRY THE WIND, BORDERLORDS, and ONE-EYED DREAM

  “Johnston’s books are action-packed … a remarkably fine blend of arduous historical research and proficient use of language … lively, lusty, fascinating.”

  —Gazette-Telegraph, Colorado Springs

  “Rich and fascinating … There is a genuine flavor of the period and of the men who made it what it was.”

  —The Washington Post Book World

  “Slick with survival-and-gore heroics and thick with Northwest-wilderness period detail (1820–40), this gutsy adventure-entertainment is also larded with just the right amounts of frontier sentiment.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “Johnston offers memorable characters, a great deal of history and lore about the Indians and pioneers of the period, and a deep insight into human nature, Indian or white.”

  —Booklist

  BOOKS BY TERRY C. JOHNSTON

  Cry of the Hawk

  Winter Rain

  Dream Catcher

  Carry the Wind

  Borderlords

  One-Eyed Dream

  Dance on the Wind

  Buffalo Palace

  Crack in the Sky

  Ride the Moon Down

  Death Rattle

  SONS OF THE PLAINS NOVELS

  Long Winter Gone

  Seize the Sky

  Whisper of the Wolf

  THE PLAINSMEN NOVELS

  Sioux Dawn

  Red Cloud’s Revenge

  The Stalkers

  Black Sun

  Devil’s Backbone

  Shadow Riders

  Dying Thunder

  Blood Song

  Reap the Whirlwind

  Trumpet on the Land

  Cold Day in Hell

  Wolf Mountain Moon

  Ashes of Heaven

  Cries from the Earth

  Lay the Mountains Low

  For all the faith he had in me

  and my vision of the old west

  right from the very first,

  I dedicate this novel of the time Titus Bass

  reaches his beloved Shining Mountains

  to

  BILL GOLLIHER,

  with my deepest appreciation for putting

  Ol’ Scratch and Carry the Wind

  in all those stores

  up and down the Colorado Rockies ten long years ago.

  The history of any land begins with nature, and all histories must end with nature.

  —J. Frank Dobie

  1

  Reining away from Troost’s Livery, Titus Bass gave the jug-headed Indian pony urgent taps of his heels, pointing it down the muddy, rutted ruin of Second Street.

  Puddles of rain glittered as the sun continued its leisurely rise, the surface of each tiny pool left behind by last night’s rain reflecting rose light like broken panes of glass scattered here and there among the heaps of wheel-cut ruts and piles of dung gone cold. Shadows still cloaked nearly all of St. Louis, save for the tallest rooftops gently steaming as they warmed.

  Instead of heading directly north, he hurried south out of town, downriver some four miles until he reached the shady glen far from the clutter of settlement and folk. Far from the clatter of man’s comings and goings. Someplace far from being underfoot. After all this time Titus was again gratified at the utter peace he sensed there as he halted, dismounted, and tied the two animals off to one of the trees ringing the glade. Plodding quietly in his thick-soled boots across the grassy carpet grown lush already this early spring, he had no trouble locating the mound. Stopping a few feet away, he took it in, finding many of the wildflowers he had transplanted nearly a year before budding once again with renewed life here above the old trapper’s resting place.

  Down in this grove the shadows lingered long of a morning. And the damp mist clung in among the trees, wispy among the climbing ivy and grape. Eventually, Titus inched forward, stopping at the foot of the grave.

  “Isaac. It’s me: Titus,” he said barely above a whisper, the way a man might first address someone he found sleeping. “I come … come here to tell you my fare-thees, Isaac. I’m bound away—for where the two of us was counting on going together. Out yondering to them prerras and far mountains you told me of again and again.”

  Then he realized and suddenly snatched the floppy felt hat from his head, dropping his eyes as if in apology for his discourteous oversight.

  “Wish you was going along,” Bass continued. “Probably asking yourself why I ain’t gone already, ain’cha? So let me tell you that you being here—dead and buried—that’s the onliest reason I ain’t gone afore now. There I was, planning all the time on tagging ’long with you … then you go and get yourself kill’t. That was—hell, it felt just like one of them old brood mares I was shoeing for Troost gone and kicked me right in the gut.”

  He dropped the hat onto the foot of the grave there among the profusion of newly emerging wildflowers and slowly went to his knees. Placing one palm flat on the grave, Titus continued.

  “Took me some time to get over your dying, Isaac Washburn. Pained me like few other things ever pained me afore in my life. I was counting on something so hard—then you go and act the idjit and you’re gone … gone along with my dreams of ever getting to them Shining Mountains you seen with your own eyes.”

  He felt that first sting of tears burn, and swiped at his eyes with a single cold finger as a ray of sun burst through the canopy overhead, the first to streak into the glade.

  “Took me a long time to get over the loss of you and my dreams both, Isaac. Didn’t get over it till I up and figgered out I could damn well go on my own. I didn’t need you like I figured I did. Got me a fine gun of my own now. The rest of our plunder and truck tied up in them bundles over yonder on them horses. And I’m riding your pony my own self. Taking it back to the prerra where I figure it belongs.”

  Slowly he dragged a sleeve of his blanket coat beneath his dribbling nose and sighed.

  “At first I hated what you done to both of us, Isaac. For killing yourself and killing my dream of going to them far mountains by way of the Platte with you. Nursed on that hate for too damn long—so long that I didn’t ever come back here to speak at you … not since I buried you in this pretty place. I’m glad to see you ain’t kill’t the flowers I planted over you, you sour-assed son of a bitch.”

  Then he gradually r
ose to his feet, sweeping up his hat and snugging it down upon his thick; curly brown hair, glancing at the single shaft of sunlight streaming into the glade, slowly marching across the nodding grass toward the grave.

  “Best be going now, Gut. Wanted to come to tell you I was on my way out yonder. Don’t know if I’d ever get back this way. And … and I come to tell you I owe you more’n I’d ever be able to pay you. So”—and he swallowed hard, tasting the ball of sentiment at the back of his throat—“so I figure the only way I’ll ever come close to repaying you for what good you done me … is to go on out yonder and live the way your kind was meant to live. The way I callate I was meant to live out my days too.”

  Swiping the palm of his hand across his whole face, smearing tears and his blubbering nose, Titus bent quickly and patted the top of the grave mound with a hand, then straightened.

  “I’ll fare well, Isaac Washburn,” he whispered, barely above a harsh croak. “Thanks to you, I’ll fare well.”

  Hurrying back to the horses, he untied them quickly and vaulted onto the pony’s back, glanced once at the shaft of sunlight just then touching the old trapper’s resting place, the wildflowers grown luminescent with that first blush of dawn’s light.

  Tapping the pony’s ribs, he moved out once more. North this time. Back four miles to St. Louis. By the time he reached town and Second Street once more, the day was birthing to the east across the mighty river.

  Titus Bass hadn’t felt this new in more years than he cared to remember.

  While he owned far less than his pap had owned at thirty-one, far less than his grandpap before him, at this moment Titus now possessed more than he had ever claimed before in his life. Not much in the way of prize stock: not this hand-me-down Indian pony he was riding, nor Hysham Troost’s gift of an old dun mare to use as a packhorse. And there sure as hell wasn’t all that much strapped in two modest blanket-wrapped bundles lashed on the back of the mare as he was taking his leave of this place. Yet in that moment as the sun rose at his shoulder, Titus Bass realized he was a wealthy man nonetheless.

  Most men would simply never be this free.

  Second Street ended at the far edge of town where the muddy, rutted road northwest to St. Charles began. The sun had climbed above the tops of the leafing trees by the time he left the last huts and shanties behind. No more did the air reek of offal and refuse pitched carelessly into the streets. No more did his nose discern the tang of woodsmoke on the damp dew of the morning. It lay behind him now. So much lay behind him now.

  While the rest of his ever-living life was spreading itself before him.

  Turning in the saddle to watch the last of the hovels disappear behind him, Titus gazed at the smoke columns rising from hundreds of chimneys and stacks above the thick green canopy. Then he took a deep breath. And a second, his eyes half closing as it sank into his lungs. No morning had ever tasted sweeter.

  That early spring morn, in the year of 1825, Titus Bass was barely thirty-one. Not a youngster by any means. He’d been broke to harness more than once. Time and again in his life he had come to know the value of hard work. And, too, Titus realized he was near twice the age of a few of those fellows who had been hiring out to the fur companies pushing their keels up the muddy Missouri River lo these past four-odd years. While he might be green at what he’d set his course to do, he sure as the devil wasn’t wet behind the ears.

  By damn, those years under his belt ought to count for something besides mere seasoning. Why, a hiring man would be hard-pressed to find any new hand more eager to pit himself against those prairies and plains, those high and terrible places that now lay before Titus Bass.

  Where the well-traveled road twisted itself up the long, gradual slope and emerged from the oak and elm, Bass reined up and turned about to gaze back at the riverside town. Stone estates hid behind high walls where the French protected themselves from the lower classes. Those long rows of warehouses along Wharf Street, tiny shops of all descriptions pressed elbow to elbow along Main. And on the outskirts lay the smoke-blackened shanties where the whiskey and rum was poured, where the women of all hue and size plied their ancient trade.

  In many a way it felt as if he had only lived there but a brief time. In other ways, it seemed as if he had been there nearly all his life.

  “That’s right, girls—gonna take myself a last look,” he spoke quietly to the animals. “Don’t have much a notion I’ll ever see St. Lou again. Leastways, not for a long, long time to come.”

  He watched as the sun tore itself fully from the edge of the earth across the great, brown, meandering swath of the Mississippi, then nudged the horses into motion and put the place behind him. Turning his back on the scars and the women too. Those years of pain as he did his damnedest to waste away to nothing at the bottom of one mug after another of metheglin, sweet rum, or apple beer. Not that he didn’t figure he would ever escape that good, clean hunger for a woman, or suppress that honest thirst for something heady and raw washing down his gullet from time to time. Just that Titus realized that out where he was heading, such hungers and thirsts might not trouble a man the way they did with so many folks living damn well on top of one another, breathing the same air.

  Out where away he was bound, there would surely be other lures.

  He drank in another long draft of morning cold as he pointed his nose toward St. Charles and the Missouri. Yes-siree. A whole new batch of temptations waited out there to dangle themselves before a man.

  By the time he felt the sun strike his back, warming the long, unkempt curls that spilled across his shoulders, Titus suddenly thought of Eli Gamble. A tall, lanky backwoodsman who had been traveling down the Ohio on his journey to St. Louis and beyond some fifteen summers before. Those long, warm days of the Longhunter Fair when the hill folk gathered to celebrate another planting season, peruse the cart vendors’ and drummers’ wares, drink and dance, and compete in tests of skill.

  “Wonder if you’d beat me if we had us a shooting match today?” Titus asked out loud, surprised at the sound of his voice after so many miles of virtual silence put behind him.

  That summer of 1810 he had been a green sixteen-year-old youth shooting in competition with the menfolk for the first time, pitted in that final relay of the fair against a frontiersman bound away to St. Lou for to join up with the Spaniard Manuel Lisa, trading and trapping for furs on the Upper Missouri. While Titus went on to ply the great waters of the Ohio and Mississippi aboard a Kentucky flatboat, Eli Gamble disappeared into the west, determined to go where Lisa was luring frontiersmen eager to see for themselves the tall peaks and open country.

  Bass wondered if Eli ever made it.

  And now he regretted never asking Isaac Washburn if he’d ever heard tell of a man called Eli Gamble. Chances were they had to know of one another—what with both of them attached to Manuel Lisa’s outfits. But then … maybe Eli never made it upriver with Andrew Henry that season of 1810–11—the same Andrew Henry who a decade later led Ashley’s brigade overland to the northern rivers.

  “The Bighorn.” Titus repeated that magical name as he had so many times across this past year … after Washburn had shown up at Troost’s Livery to kindle that flame of yondering. One after another the names of other rivers came rolling out like mystical, even mythical, places, so far from everything Bass had ever known.

  “The Powder,” he sighed this morning. “And Tongue. Yallerstone too.”

  Yet first he had to reach the Platte. And that’s when he remembered Hugh Glass. How Washburn and Glass had crossed the Platte River country after they were put afoot by Pawnee, the pair eventually stumbling into Fort Lookout on the Missouri. Glass went one way—back to the mountain country to pit himself against fate once more—and Isaac Washburn turned south to St. Louis to have himself a well-deserved spree.

  If Gamble weren’t up there still, was Glass? Nigh onto fifteen years now for Eli, but not anywhere near that long since Hugh Glass turned back to the Rockies—alone.


  The French and American settlers in St. Charles paid Bass little mind as he entered their village of squat huts and tiny stone houses, many thatched with hay in the old French style, others roofed with cedar shakes split when the sap was down to be sure they did not curl. Smoke whispered up from every chimney here as the day began to age. Smells assaulted his nostrils in this muddy lane leading through town to the Missouri River itself. And the sounds of folk and farm animals grew loud upon his ears.

  How might total silence feel about him?

  Even in those forests where he had grown into a man, especially on the mighty rivers, there was always some noise. Wings flapped and birds called out. The wind soughed through the trees. Water lapped against the yellow poplar side of Ebenezer Zane’s broadhorn Kentucky flatboat as it floated down the great eastern rivers.

  So naturally he wondered how would it be to find himself out where Washburn claimed the land went on for days and days beneath an endless blue dome of sky, a distance so immense that it seemed to swallow all sound itself—a piece of country so quiet that a man could hear his own thoughts rattle noisily about inside his head.

  “I damn well don’t believe it!” Titus had protested to the cantankerous fur trapper one night as they sat over their brown bottles of sugared rum freighted upriver from New Orleans, brought there on high-masted ships from the islands of the far Indies.